German Physiks

In 1978 Peter Dicks, engineer, mathematician and sociologist, was a very frustrated man. Dicks, who had no professional involvement in audio engineering at the time, had become fascinated with certain fundamental problems of audio transducer behaviour. After years of mathematical modelling and physical experimentation, he had created a design that he believed decisively surpassed the then state of the art. By 1980 Dicks had succeeded in developing an extremely impressive sounding prototype based upon his innovative design concepts. He had also developed a complete theoretical model of the device’s operation. He expected these at the very least to elicit some degree of interest from the loudspeaker manufacturing industry. To his dismay, the numerous driver manufacturers he contacted throughout Northern Europe all responded with either condescension or disinterest.

It was only in the early 90s, after a series of prototypes had been heard by a number of audiophiles, that Dicks was finally contacted by a medium sized German company called Mainhattan Acustik, run by Holger Mueller an audiophile and IT expert. They made high quality loudspeakers employing conventional drivers and sold moderately well in Europe and the Far East. In contrast to the rest of the European loudspeaker industry, Mainhattan showed the first real interest in his work. Mueller, was intrigued from the start. The prototype which Peter Dicks had developed was on the face of it a derivative of a design for which Mueller already had the highest regard, the famous Walsh Driver, invented by maverick American transformer engineer, Lincoln Walsh. Mueller himself owned a pair of Ohm F loudspeakers that used an early version of the Walsh driver and had always felt that the design had enormous untapped potential. As he examined Dicks’ rather unimpressive looking prototype and pored over the detailed design notes, he saw that much of that potential had now been realised. Mueller agreed to license the design, and thus German Physiks was born. The company’s first task was to turn Dicks’ prototype into a commercial product. For the next two years they pursued that task, patiently extracting every improvement in performance that the Dicks Dipole Driver, or DDD, as the new design was called, was capable of.

Portfolio

The Gaudi mk2

3 way speaker with a way active crossover and 360° surround radiation using the DDD Bending Wave Converter

Unlimited:

Enjoy the Music – Tom Lyle – December 2016“I came to realize how it could not only be a different way of enjoying the reproduction of music in one’s home, but the way to enjoy the reproduction of music.” – Read the Review

Hi-Fi +, UK – Alan Sircom – May 2016“More than ever, you owe it to yourself to try the German Physiks sound. It could be all you ever need.” – Read the Review

Hi-Fi Choice, UK – David Price – June 2015“… what is spectacular is the sheer size of the sound, and the wonderfully accurate way that instruments are placed within the soundstage. There is very little sense that music is coming from the Unlimited at all; it’s just there like a part of the furniture, and suddenly when you put some music on the room comes to life.” – Read the Review

Hi Fi Pig, UK – Janine Elliott – May 2015“… with the Unlimited Mk ll I could sit anywhere I wanted, and actually got a more natural and easier-to-listen-to musical experience. Listening to vocals was particularly pleasurable from wherever I sat or walked. The singers were in the room with me.” – Read the Review

The Absolute Sound, USA – Dick Olsher – February 2014“In musical enjoyment, it leapfrogs a host of expensive box speakers that are forever constrained to sound like canned music, offering a slice of sonic heaven at a fair price.” – Read the Review

Hi Fi Pig, UK – Jerry Jacobs – July 2013“What I can say for sure is that if German Physiks had had a significant hifi show presence in the UK alerting me to their existence, then MBL would have had serious competition for my own money! For me, you cannot get a higher recommendation than that.” – Read the Review

Hi-Fi Plus, UK – Alan Sircom – June 2013“It has one of those sounds that if it gets into your head, you will not be happy with anything else, and even the least ‘hi-fi’ sounding box of cones and domes will sound contrived.” – Read the Review

Hi Fi Vision, Germany – Michael Voigt / Elmar Michels – 2011“Exhibiting a perfect spatial reproduction, an honest tonality and an astonishing naturalness, these speakers definitely are something very special for connoisseurs of a sophisticated music reproduction – a true Highlight!” – Read the Review

Hi Fi World, UK – David Price – June 2011“Expansive beyond almost all others in its class, this superb loudspeaker is for lovers of crisp, accurate, neutral and open sound.” – Read the Review

HRS-130

The Absolute Sound, USA – Dick Olsher – October 2017“What you get here is a world-class wide-range driver that is exceptionally well engineered and superbly integrated into a speaker that is almost perfect for a small-to-medium-sized room. In my estimation, the carbon-fiber DDD is one of the top five driver innovations of the past 40 years, delivering the coherent phase and uniform power response first envisioned by Lincoln Walsh. Given the right amplifier and room setup, the HRS-130 ticks all the important sonic boxes and clearly edges out the competition when it comes to palpable imaging. No wonder the German Physiks HRS-130 is currently my favorite speaker under $25k.” – Read the Review

Tone Audio, USA – Jeff Dorgay – May 2017“The German Physiks HRS 130 speakers are a triumph of audio engineering, offering a high level of sonic accuracy, with little distortion and the ability to generate a massive, immersive sound field that few speakers at any price can match. I highly suggest you audition a pair!” – Read the Review

Hi Fi Choice, UK – Chris Ward – November 2016“The HRS-130 combines the speed and imaging qualities of an electrostatic panel with the coherence and communication of a full-range driver, along with the air shifting qualities of a dedicated subwoofer.” – Read the Review

Hi-Fi +, UK – Alan Sircom – May 2015“Once you get used to it, then, the sound of the HRS-130 is beguiling. Once you get it, then, it’s more like you moved the concert hall into the living room. You get a lot of the scale of the orchestra, shoe-horned into your room, and a sound that washes over you and envelops you, rather than stays on the other side of the room.” – Read the Review

Hi Fi Pig, UK – Janine Elliott – February 2015“Interestingly, the most excitement I got was when I used these speakers as the sound whilst watching a film, indeed finding them more engaging than my 5.1 set up. The depth of soundstage was mesmerizingly absorbing. For me this is where they excelled. Where cluttered layers of sounds and music in film can be so confusing, these speakers unravelled them and put them in their rightful position, just as the AD on the film set directs the Extras to their starting points.” – Read the Review

Borderland mk4

Hi-Fi +, UK – Alan Sircom – October 2016“The Borderland has all those properties we’ve come to expect from German Physiks loudspeakers, but more so. There’s that outstanding imagery, which is not limited to one place in the room. There’s also that fine top-to-bottom coherence of sound, the extension and grace without an overtly ‘audiophile’ faux sound, and so on. But with the Borderland, this all comes together with a larger, more physically ‘in the room’ presentation that is as potent as it is beguiling.” – Read the Review

6Moons, Switzerland – Srajan Ebaen – January 2015“Those meanwhile who attend a lot of concerts not front-row center, with their own two ears the only microphones, know of a very different sound. It’s bigger, darker, heavier, bassier, with water-colour transitions, no sharp image outlines, no ultra separation but a gentle blending. Voilà, that’s how the German Physiks do it too.” – Read the Review

Dagogo, USA – Greg Petan – August 2011“Stellar top-to-bottom coherency, speed and dynamics make for a solid foundation upon which the bass with its power, speed and pitch make it a bass-freaks’ master. The rest of the spectrum is just as well rendered with an infinitely open and detailed sound.” – Read the Review

Audiophile, Germany – Holger Biermann – March 2011“The Borderland overcomes the boundaries of ‘normal’ loudspeakers and seduces you with what appears to be a listening experience almost without frontiers.” – Read the Review

Unicorn mk2

HiFi Vision, Germany – Christian Gather – March 2012“With the Unicorn, music can really be enjoyed in an incredibly relaxed manner. They manage to involve the listener and to put him or her in the middle of the action. This is what almost no other loudspeakers, apart from other German Physiks models, manage to do.” – Read the Review

PQS-202 mk2

Positive Feedback Online, USA – Max Dudious – July 2008“The orchestral instruments’ sounds just seem to float in space. The sound comes from everywhere at once, factoring in reflections, and the experience of getting up to change a still-playing CD is like moving among the instruments.” – Read the Review

Emperor mk2

Audiophile, Germany – Holger Biermann – November 2013“The longer I listened, the more the Emperor drew me under its spell; this homogeneity, this wealth of detail, this enormous pulling power.” – Read the Review

Philosophy

German Physiks is a specialist manufacturer dedicated to the production of the highest possible quality loudspeakers based on solid engineering principles and meticulous attention to detail. This is why we spent 2 years developing our own unique bending wave driver technology before it was put into a commercial product. This novel technology sets us apart from other loudspeaker makers and enables us to achieve new standards of transparency, speed and musicality. Successive refinements of this technology have brought us ever closer to our ultimate goal of faithfully recreating a musical performance and this is a quest we continue to pursue.

At first glance the German Physiks DDD driver looks like a conventional piston cone driver. It has a voice coil/magnet assembly that serves as the actuator and it has a cone, though this is longer and narrower than usual. The shape is where the similarity with a piston driver ends. With a piston driver when the voice coil moves, the entire cone moves together with it – or that is what we want it to do. This is why the cone and voice coil structure is made as rigid as possible. The sound wave that a piston driver produces moves in the same direction as the movement of the cone – figure 1. This is why piston drivers are generally placed facing towards the listener.

The DDD driver cone is made from a very light and flexible foil – 0.025 mm thick titanium or 0.15 mm thick carbon fibre. While the shape of the cone gives it rigidity at rest, it is relatively easy to excite waves in the cone material. The clever part is controlling these waves. In very simple terms, the resulting motion can be compared to that of the bell of a jelly fish when it is swimming, with the sound wave radiated sideways from the driver as shown in figure 2. For this reason the DDD driver is always mounted vertically.